A Quick Victory Over France

The German Command, in planning for a short and swift war, found themselves in a bind when the war started to prolong itself. From the very beginning, their plan started to fall apart, as Belgium, who they assumed would just let them march through to France, took up arms in resisting their approaches (Hull, 2005). The war would get longer and longer and seemed farther away from its conclusion as the months grew colder. As a result of this as well as their Prussian roots, they resorted to dangerously risky and destructive tactics, trying to bring the war to a quicker end while putting more of their resources in jeopardy, a move that eventually did not pay off and ended up leading to the German Empire’s demise (Hull, 2005).

For Germany, 1914 would witness the enthronement of Kultur in Europe and the fulfillment of Germany’s historic mission. As Thomas Mann saw it, “Germans . . . deserved to be the most powerful, to dominate, to establish a ‘German peace’” (311). The French, for their part, in the face of growing German militarism given voice by the Kaiser himself, “possessor of the least inhibited tongue in Europe,” stoked up their furor Gallicae and awaited the moment that had seemed inevitable ever since the Treaty of Versailles had amputated her eastern flank. Aside from nationalistic scores to settle, many other nations were simply “sore-headed and fed up” with “Germany’s clattering of the sword” and saw in the coming conflict hopes for the “moral regeneration of Europe” (312-313). Tuchman sees the parts as well as the whole, and her discussion of cause as it relates to individual battles and the generals involved is psychologically astute without being limiting. She offers plausible explanations for General John French’s lack of will in the defense of Belgium (218) and shows how the breakdown of Plan 17 in the first weeks of the war paved the way for a long and brutal struggle (262), as did the final failure of the Germans’ Schlieffen Plan for a double envelopment of the enemy. The ensuing deadlock

Germany and why it has gone through First World War has been subject of debate among scholars, academics and historians. Several documents have been analyzed in order to understand the subject and aims of Germany were when it went on war. Wide ranging literature is available on the subject, which concentrates on discussing the start of World War I. History is based on evaluation and examination of facts. The

However, Ludendorff’s plan backfired when Wilson’s Points insisted that Germany lay down all arms and dissolved its army to no more than 100,000 troops, as well as all parties responsible resign (Peukert, 1987; 46). If Wilson’s constitutional reforms were to be implemented a democratic parliament could have been formed (Peukert, 1987; 24). Obviously Germany was reluctant, at first, to accept all of the responsibility of the war. To add to the attempt of keeping Germany a War state and its reluctant surrender, Keiser Wilhelm II ordered a last attempt by the German Naval Fleet to attack. This created a mutiny in Wilhelmshaven on October 28, 1918 and a sailor’s resurrection in Kiel on November 3rd and 4th (Peukert, 1987; 27). The peaceful revolutionary movement has begun in Germany and the citizens began expressing they wanted a new government. During the revolution the Weimar Republic was forming and it seemed to be doing so with little compromise from polar parties. Somehow, the Weimar Constitution was written and the new government began to practice democracy. Most of Germany, by now, wants to be a viable part of the world and achieve a better standard of living, the newly formed Weimar Republic and fragile economy will be tested with the Versailles Treaty.

The Schlieffen Plan is commonly – though misleadingy – identified with the German western offensive at the start of the First World War in August 1914, which began as a campaign of rapid movement but ended in deadlock and trench warfare. The plan is generally seen as a desperate gamble almost certain to fail, and its recklessness is counted as part of Germany’s war guilt – the plan held out the false promise of a quick victory, and so it underpinned the “short war illusion” that led Germany into a long war of attrition, ending with her defeat and collapse in 1918. This analysis confuses two quite different moments in history. The Schlieffen Plan was not designed to meet the strategic challenge Germany faced in 1914,

In addition to the damaging consequences of the First World War with the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles, certain features of Germany caused the state to be susceptible to the influence of this dangerous ideology. Along with the damage to the national ego as a result of the First World War, Germany had co-existing and conflicting highly modern strands of development forced to integrate with powerful remnants of archaic values and social structures, and had a deeply fractured parliamentary political system, and the weaknesses of this system reflected the social and political differences within the population. This shame and failure after World War I was superimposed onto a modern country which once had an advanced economy, a sophisticated state

Leah Griffin 3/6/15 HIST 121 Document Analysis Paper World War I played a key role in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. After the devastating war, Germany was viewed as the main instigator and the European Allied Powers decided to impose strict treaty obligations upon Germany. This treaty, also known as the Treaty of Versailles, was signed by Germany and went into effect in June 1919 (“Treaty of Versailles, 1919” 1). The treaty forced Germany to give up the land it seized from multiple countries during the war and also forced Germany to recognize the independence of several others (“The Treaty of Versailles – 1919” 37-43). The treaty also forced Germany to agree to many other humiliating terms that did not rest easy with the German public

In order to capture Tuchman’s argument on Germany’s behavior, it is essential to understand that realism asserts that all states seek power and that anarchy dictates the laws of the international system. Despite the internal divisions between classical and structural realism on how anarchy leads to war, this paradigm emphasizes the enduring propensity for conflict between self-interested states due to the lack of a central authority to regulate or control nation states. States are concerned with the distribution of power and seek to ensure their own survival and security in the international system. From a realist perspective, the outbreak of the war was a result of the increasingly multi-polar nature of arrangements and the entanglement of alliances, treaties and military plans all of which were diplomatic attempts to overpower nations and prevent hegemony. Therefore, Germany entered in an alliance with Austria which made it inevitable to avoid a two-front fight but also focused its diplomatic efforts to overcome the Anglo-Japanese Treaty which was viewed “as an unnatural alliance” (p.22, p.74). Realism also emphasizes that states are willing to do anything despite public and foreign opinion to gain power and size. It suggests that since its reunification in 1870, Germany viewed its national interest in terms of power and acted aggressively to secure its means of authority. It can also explain why the “probable effect on world opinion,

The most renowned German military strategist, Alfred von Schlieffen, exercised a powerful influence not only with the German military thought, but also with the course of the World War I. Schlieffen is popular integrating in his strategies the use of total warfare and modern techniques. In fact, Schlieffen Plan, one of his most famous works, attests to his passion both to annihilation and his adaptation to the Modern Era. In line with this assertion, this paper will explore Schleiffen’s key military principles—annihilation, encirclement, quickness, and industrialization, as well as its foundations and origins. In addition, this paper will also discuss how these principles climaxed in the Schleiffen, and the ways by which

Why Germany lost the war (despite its early tactical successes) is a simple question with a complex answer. And, over the years since Germany’s surrender at Reims, France on May 7, 1945, scholars and historians have provided a number of arguments to warrant their perspective answers. Consequently there are a

In this essay I attempt to answer the following two questions: What is Karl Popper’s view of science? Do I feel that Thomas Kuhn makes important points against it? The two articles that I make reference to are "Science: Conjectures and Refutations" by Karl Popper and "Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?" by Thomas Kuhn.

Popper and Kuhn held differing views on the nature of scientific progress. As seen in Popper’s falsification theory, he held that theories can never be proved only disproved or falsified. Once a theory is proved false we move on to the next. Kuhn, on the other, hand argued a new paradigm may solve puzzles better than the old one but you cannot describe the old science as false. Both seem to share the Kantian idea that the really real, independently existing world is completely unknowable. Kuhn further asserts that the empirical world, which is knowable, is partly constructed by our categories and concepts. The fundamental difference in their views are best stated in Kuhn’s own words, “A very different approach to this whole network of problems has been developed by Karl R. Popper who denies the existence of any verification procedures at all. Instead he emphasizes the importance of falsification, i.e., of the test that, because its outcome is negative, necessitates the rejection of an established theory. Clearly, the role thus attributed to falsification is much like the one this essay assigns to anomalous experiences, i.e., to experiences that, by evoking crisis, prepare the way for a new theory. Nevertheless, anomalous experiences may not be identified with falsifying ones.”(Kuhn, 145) As seen by this passage, the fundamental difference between Popper and Kuhn is that Popper disregards “verification” and Kuhn asserts that “falsification” only takes place once a

The world of science, as we know it today, is a difficult subject to grasp. So many new ideas are present and these new ideas are not interchangeable. Some parts do work together although as a whole they don’t fully coincide with each other. The three basic ideas that science is now based upon come from Newton, Einstein, and Hawking. I call these ideas/theories “new” based on what I classify the state of the scientific community of today. After looking at what is going on in science, it is clear to me that the scientific world is in a crisis state. According to Kuhn, a crisis state is when science is in the middle of choosing a particular paradigm to work under. For scientists, there is a general theme

We live in a strange and puzzling world. Despite the exponential growth of knowledge in the past century, we are faced by a baffling multitude of conflicting ideas. The mass of conflicting ideas causes the replacement of knowledge, as one that was previously believed to be true gets replace by new idea. This is accelerated by the rapid development of technology to allow new investigations into knowledge within the areas of human and natural sciences. Knowledge in the human sciences has been replaced for decades as new discoveries by the increased study of humans, and travel has caused the discarding of a vast array of theories. The development of

November 11, 1918, Europe would be left in utter devastation from the effects of World War I. These effects which would have unprecedented effect on the development on European nations into modern nations. However, the immediate impact of the policies and treaties created by the “Big Four” (Great Britain, Italy, France and The United States) would leave devastating irreversible consequences on the Great War’s losers. The most important treaty that the allies would make would be The Treaty of Versailles, signed on June 28th, 1919. This treaty would have the most destructive consequences on Germany, whom would become bitter, nationalistic, and isolated from its effects. As Holborn puts it, “the treaty did not solve the problem of reparations, which was not settled for years to come in a fashion that would have stabilized the social and economic conditions of Europe. The struggle about the economic settlement of World War I kept alive and magnified the national hostilities which the political provinces of the peace produced.”1 The Treaty of Versailles would require Germany to surrender vast amounts of territory in Europe and oversea, diminish its military might significantly, impose insurmountable financial and economic demands, as well as making her accept the ‘War Guilt Clause;’ this in turn would make the Germans feel a national humiliation and cause tremendous resent, this in turn would lead to the rise of authoritarianism, expansionism and the public demand for redemption.